Rise in Revolution (Chapter Fifty-Two)
Sep. 9th, 2016 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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saladloveChapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldri
Chapter Fifty-Two
Featherwatch
Above the city, Sector TZI. April 9, 2272. Time instance 842N.
Clash spread his wings further, flames flickering and dancing as he flew with the wind pulling at him, daring him to challenge it. He glowed brighter momentarily as he flapped his wings, gaining altitude and cawing happily.
Sometimes, being a phoenix was the best thing in the world.
He extended his wings to soar as his mind drifted, however, to Scott. It was a shame that he couldn’t fly as well- it was the only reason that Clash didn’t leave the ground behind more often. Loneliness was something that he had always struggled with, and an hour or so in the sky was all he could take before his longing for company drew him back down to earth.
At least Scott was immortal now. He shivered slightly thinking about the alternative. It had been a line of thought that he had deliberately avoided for as long as he’d known him, for as long as he’d cared about him. Elementals didn’t bond to others quickly, but once they had, it was almost impossible for that to fade.
In short, losing their partner was devastating, and it wasn’t something that Clash wanted to consider for even a moment. He shook off the thoughts and folded his wings, diving towards the ground. Being alone was suddenly a terrible idea.
As he dove, however, he heard a caw that immediately caught his attention. He spread his wings and pulled into a hover, looking around for the source. That was no aven or bird.
A second caw drew his attention and he turned, returning the greeting and flying forward, excitement building as the flaming red form moved towards him.
A phoenix.
Another phoenix.
They circled each other, looking curiously and cawing excitedly. Clash found himself momentarily overwhelmed at seeing another of his kind for the first time in over twenty years. The other phoenix’s flames burned crimson, with yellow-orange eyes lit up in a friendly light. They were smaller, which was interesting, likely signaling that they were even younger than Clash who, by phoenix standards, was hardly even an adult.
They seemed intrigued by Clash’s odd flame colors, as most elementals usually were. His main body burned with normal-colored flame, but his sides and wings blazed with with blue on the right and red on left. He was what was referred to as a dual-fire phoenix, an unusual variation that usually possessed some kind of interesting ability.
Clash was pretty sure he didn’t have an interesting ability, but he liked his colors and figured that having some kind of power to go along with it would just be too much.
The other phoenix cawed a request to land and Clash folded his wings, swooping towards the ground and landing on a fence. The crimson phoenix swooped down towards the ground and transformed into their human form, Clash following suit.
The other phoenix had hair almost as bright orange as his eyes, which burned with that same cheerful light. He was shorter than Clash and looked about sixteen, but he was certainly older than that. He grinned and bounded right up to him, immediately starting to chatter.
“Dare told me there was another phoenix here and I didn’t know if I could believe her but you’re here and you’re a dual-fire phoenix and wow! I haven’t seen another phoenix since the invasion, not since Vor’estra, but-”
The name struck a chord. “Vor’estra? You knew her?”
“Yeah! I fought with her against the invasion! But…” The other phoenix hesitated. “She...she didn’t…” His shoulders slumped. “She got taken out right after being hit with an anti-magic pulse. She couldn’t...she couldn’t regenerate.”
Clash felt his heart fall. Vor’estra had been an ancient violetflame phoenix, thousands of years old. He had met her, once, when he was very young although he couldn’t remember it. The loss of one of the ancients would hit the fire elementals hard once the gates were re-opened and they learned of her death.
He shook it off. Thinking about that won’t help any. “Do you have her heartfeather?”
The other phoenix nodded. “I was really careful to grab it. Once we take out the Mainframe, I’ll return it to the plane of fire.”
Clash nodded, relieved. When a phoenix died, their body collapsed into a single glowing feather called a heartfeather. It was said that a phoenix’s spirit could not rest unless their heartfeather was released into the plane of fire, and Clash shivered at the idea of one of the ancients not gaining the right.
The other phoenix seemed to shove off the dark thoughts, however, and held out his hands to shake. “Anyway, hi! I’m Flarefire!”
Clash smiled and shook his hand. “Clash.”
“Oooo, that’s a neat name. How’d you get it?”
Clash grinned ruefully. “I ran into walls and knocked things over a lot when I first hatched.”
“Cool name for running into walls! I mean, it’s a cool name anyway, but, um, I mean…” Flarefire awkwardly trailed off, not sure how to phrase what he wanted to say.
“Flarefire’s a cool name too. How’d you earn it?”
“I always shot up little flame beacons, like flares. I guess my parents weren’t as creative as yours.”
Clash shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. I’d-”
He was interrupted by an unfortunately familiar voice. “Weeell, if it isn’t ol’ Scoot-butt’s boyfriend.”
Clash groaned under his breath and turned his head to look at the intruder. “What do you want, Chester?”
“Where’s Scott, featherbrain?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I want to know! I don’t have to tell you anything!”
Clash crossed his arms. Normally, he didn’t dislike people, however Chester was a special case. “You don’t need to know.”
Chester growled. “Now see here, you feathery shrieking piece of-”
“Oh, go away.” Clash looked away from him back to Flarefire. “What were we talking about?”
“Names, I think.”
“Don’t you ignore me!” Chester’s voice rose into an angry snarl. Clash didn’t react.
“Right. Isn’t it interesting that most races name their offspring before they get to know them? I mean, we tend to be pretty literal with our names. Clash, Flarefire, that sort of thing.”
“Yeah! Sometimes people end up with names that don’t fit them at all. Like...like…” Flarefire struggled for an example.
Chester snarled and stormed up to them, but an intercepting shadow caught Clash’s attention. M’s cloak seemed darker than usual as he stood right in Chester’s face, yellow eyes boring into him.
“You can defeat neither Clash nor Scott in combat. They are both more powerful than you ever will be.” M’s forgettable voice sent a shiver down Chester’s spine, making him take a half-step back.
“Scott-”
“Is a vampire and is too important to deal with your nonsense any longer. Begone.”
Chester looked between M and Clash before growling and storming off. M turned and nodded to Clash slightly before moving away and vanishing once more.
Flarefire shivered. “Who was that?”
“M.”
“What is he?”
“I don’t know,” Clash admitted, rubbing his arms as if to warm them up. “No one does.”
~~~
Scott looked up as the door opened, his arms uncrossing and a smile lighting up his face. “Hey, Clash! You were gone for awhile.”
“Sorry.” Clash shut the door, making sure that no sunlight streamed through, before stepping forward and hugging Scott. “I made a new friend.”
“That’s awesome! Who?”
“A phoenix named Flarefire. He’s really young but he fought with one of the phoenix ancients during the invasion.” Scott noted that Clash’s voice held a barely contained note of excitement. Phoenixes didn’t often come to Kaldriel, so it was rare to find one post-invasion. It was hard to not see one of your own for twenty years- about the length of Scott’s entire life- so the prospect of making friends with one was exciting.
“That’s fucking awesome, dude. I’m glad you made a new friend.”
“I also ran into Chester. He wanted to know where you were but I ignored him. I probably shouldn’t have, but…”
“No. That was a good response. You don’t have it in you to be mean to him, but he doesn’t deserve to talk to you.”
“People don’t have to deserve to talk to me.”
“Yes they do. You’re great and the peasants have to grovel before you or not get near you.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I am ridiculous. And great.”
“That you are.” Scott grinned at that and Clash mirrored the expression. “M showed up and told him to leave, though, so he did. It’s hard not to listen to M.”
“Hard to remember what you heard, thou- oh yeah! Xela’s been looking through her database and has a few ideas of what M might be!”
“Cool! But…” Clash hesitated, frowning. “If he doesn't want to tell us, should we really be looking for the answer?”
Scott paused. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought of that. You might want to mention that to Xela.”
“I dunno. I don’t want to stop her from enjoying herself if she’s-”
“She always appreciates input. Come on! I know she’ll be excited to show someone else her findings.”
“She’s awake?”
“She and I are the most diurnal vampires ever. Not to mention I think she’s slept maybe nine hours since I met her.”
“That was weeks ago!”
“To Xela, that means nothing.” Clash still looked doubtful so Scott grabbed his arm and took off, dragging him across the room. Clash yelped in surprise, forgetting Scott’s inhuman strength, and scrambled to keep his footing. Scott let go quickly and let him follow on his own, grinning and showing his teeth.
“Your fangs are coming in!”
“Yeah!” Scott subconsciously ran his tongue over his fangs, taking in their still-unfamiliar shape. “I’m really liking them so far. They’re really the best part of being a vampire. And the eyes. The scary green is awesome.”
“It looks good,” Clash agreed. “They looked good before, too.”
How vain do I want to go with this? “I know.” Clash blinked. Oh dammit too far. “Not as good as yours.” NICE recovery. And also true.
“No, they’re not-”
“Either come in or go away, but stop flirting outside the door!” Xela protested from the other side.
“Not sorry, Xela!”
“You’re not sorry about anything, you ungrateful little shit.”
“I’m great.”
“I’m not disagreeing. Are you coming in?”
“Oh, yeah, definitely.” Scott opened the door and motioned for Clash to go in, following him and shutting the door behind them.
Xela raised an eyebrow, looking up from her laptop. She was leaned back in a comfortable chair with a half-drained bottle of blood on the table beside her. “What did you want, anyway?”
“You had some theories about M and I wanted to know if you had any more, and Clash hasn’t heard them yet.” He pointed at the bottle. “Are you going to drink that?”
Xela’s teal eyes lit up. “Yes, I have some more theories, and yes, I’m going to drink it, so keep your grubby fingers off of it.”
Scott sat on the small couch, crossing his arms and pouting. “You’re no fun.”
Clash ignored the disturbing mental image of Scott drinking the contents of the bottle- that he would never get used to- and sat down beside him, pulling his jacket a little tighter around him.
“So!” Xela typed a few lines into her laptop and turned it around for them to see the image on the screen. It was of two cloaked figures, both with glowing eyes, that seemed to have a dark aura around them that intensified the lights of their eyes and darkened their cloaks. “These are ra’kara, a type of shadow elemental. They’re shapeshifters so they hide in their cloaks until their powers are needed. He might be one of them, but he shadows don’t react the same way. He doesn’t draw them like ra’kara do, and their voices are never forgotten so much as difficult to understand. They speak in ominous clicks and hisses, and while M uses some kind of dark magic to fight, it’s just not shadow.” She flipped the image to a larger, reptilian monster made of solid shadow with glowing red eyes.
“This is a karskar. It’s a darkness elemental, but I don’t think that M could be one. They’re usually tall and don’t hide what they are, which doesn't match him at all. He could be a lord ra’kara, who cannot be photographed and don’t often leave the plane of shadow, but it seems unlikely as they radiate a lot of elemental magical energy and need a lot of shadow essence to stay alive on Kaldriel. It’s unlikely that he was obtaining some or had a stash without you guys knowing.” She turned the laptop back towards her.
“He could be a vampire, which would explain the cloak, but he’d have to get blood somehow and it doesn’t explain the magic or the voice...thing. It does explain the eyes, though, as older and more powerful vampires’ eyes often glow.”
“My eyes are going to glow?”
“If you survive for a few hundred years, yes.” Xela rolled her eyes. “Even I’m too young for that. Anyway, another theory is a bit far-fetched but honestly I’m grasping for straws here. He could be a ghost bound to the cloak, which is enchanted with certain properties that give him his odd...everything.”
Scott snorted. That’s likely. “I have an idea of what he might be.”
“Oh?”
“A girl.” Scott grinned.
Clash and Xela both laughed at that, Xela rolling her eyes once she had recovered. “He might be,” she admitted. “Didn’t you guys just sort of assume and he rolled with it?”
“Yeah. Maybe he’s a genderless enchanted cloak.”
“Maybe he’s a bee,” Clash suggested.
“Bees?” Scott’s head whipped around and his voice rose in pitch, his grin growing wider.
“Bees?” Clash’s voice rose even higher and they both burst into laughter, leaving Xela very confused.
“Oh, oh, what if he’s two bees?” Scott continued laughing.
“What holds up the cloak, then?” Xela asked, tilting her head and slowly smiling.
“A skeleton,” Clash suggested. “Two bees and a skeleton.”
“A bee in each eye socket?” Xela grinned as the other two continued to laugh.
“He’s two bees and a skeleton that’s secretly a girl!”
“Oh, definitely.”
They continued like that for several minutes, their theories growing more and more ridiculous as time went on and soon devolving into hysterical laughter occasionally interrupted by speaking.
It had been a good day.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-09 10:46 pm (UTC)They'll be together forever now, dawww X3
They seemed intrigued by Clash’s odd flame colors, as most elementals usually were. His main body burned with normal-colored flame, but his sides and wings blazed with with blue on the right and red on left. He was what was referred to as a dual-fire phoenix, an unusual variation that usually possessed some kind of interesting ability.
Duel-fire phoenix eh?
Also why am I getting "It's two Clashes, they're coming to your town" running though my head or am I just tired and my brain is confusing one thing with something else? XP
Clash nodded, relieved. When a phoenix died, their body collapsed into a single glowing feather called a heartfeather.
Don't let anyone who plays Final Fantasy see it, they might mistake it for a Phoenix Down and eat it XP
Joking aside heartfeathers sound cool and beautiful.
Chester snarled and stormed up to them, but an intercepting shadow caught Clash’s attention. M’s cloak seemed darker than usual as he stood right in Chester’s face, yellow eyes boring into him.
“You can defeat neither Clash nor Scott in combat. They are both more powerful than you ever will be.” M’s forgettable voice sent a shiver down Chester’s spine, making him take a half-step back.
Nice intercept M!
Also screw you Chester, everyone else has more important shit to be dealing with than you.
“Either come in or go away, but stop flirting outside the door!” Xela protested from the other side.
Did I mention that I love Xela? XD
They continued like that for several minutes, their theories growing more and more ridiculous as time went on and soon devolving into hysterical laughter occasionally interrupted by speaking.
It's the in story version of the Google Doc XD
no subject
Date: 2016-09-09 11:47 pm (UTC)NotScott33
Date: 2016-09-13 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-10 05:35 am (UTC)-Observing Anon
no subject
Date: 2016-09-10 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-10 07:23 pm (UTC)I also find it funny that, for all you know, I COULD be a girl...
no subject
Date: 2016-09-10 11:36 pm (UTC)His motives might just be to mess with people.
I'VE HEARD YOU SPEAK IT SEEMS UNLIKELY
no subject
Date: 2016-09-11 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-11 07:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-11 01:05 pm (UTC)